An apparatus and facility of the type mentioned in the introduction are known from the publication DE 10 2008 040 937 A1. The apparatus for dicing foodstuffs described there comprises a cylindrical bowl, which is provided to be positioned on a food processor. The food processor has an upward projecting drive shaft, which during operation penetrates the bowl in the region of a central, sleeve-type cutout. Positioned on the upper edge of the bowl is a housing part, which accommodates both the rotating cutting tool and the static cutting grid. The housing part can be closed off with a cover, which has an upward projecting feed shaft for feeding in items to be processed in the region of the cutting grid. The drive shaft of the food processor is let into a coupling facility of the cutting tool with a form fit in the upper region of the cutout to transfer the torque.
The housing part is configured in the manner of a circular disk and provided with an eccentrically disposed, approximately rectangular opening for the passage of the items to be processed, which tapers conically in the lower region. The similarly rectangular cutting grid can be positioned flush with the upper face of the housing part on supporting ribs provided in the tapering part of the opening. Also present in the center of the housing part is an essentially cylindrical hole, which is vertical in the operating position, parts of its lateral surface transitioning into the opening. For this reason the cutting grid has a notch, which follows the lateral surface. The hole is provided to accommodate the sleeve-type coupling facility of the cutting tool, which is configured as open at the bottom for positioning on the drive shaft of the food processor. At the top the cutting tool is provided in the region of the coupling facility with a peripheral collar and a pin, which are disposed coaxially to one another and to the rotation axis of the drive shaft. The cutting tool is supported in a radially rotatable manner on a downward projecting annular projection of the cover both by way of the lateral surface of the coupling facility in the hole and by means of collar or pin.
The cutting tool is also equipped with a ring element, which is aligned coaxially to the rotation axis, running round the entire periphery in the region of its outer periphery, and is connected to the upper part of the coupling facility by way of two cutting blades that extend horizontally and are located opposite one another. Ring element and coupling facility together therefore form a blade support for the cutting tool. The cutting blades are usually angled so that the items being processed, which are cut transversely into slices by the cutting tool, are driven during its rotation through the cutting grid due to the wedge effect and cut longitudinally there. Support facilities in the form of hook-type locking elements are distributed in a regular manner on the housing part along the outer periphery and can each be pivoted at their lower end about a vertical rotation axis aligned tangentially to the outer periphery of the housing part.
When the apparatus is brought into operation, the coupling facility is pushed into the hole, until the lower axial face of the ring element rests on the upper face of the housing part. The opened ring elements are then pushed by a pivoting movement directed toward the center of the housing part with their upper horizontal arms over the upper axial face of the ring element, until they rest against one another. Such apparatuses for chopping items to be processed and food processors equipped therewith have proven effective in practice. However it is possible, when processing items that have a particular tendency to catch, for the items being processed to collect in the annular gap between the static housing part and the rotating ring element of the tool and produce unwanted friction, which can result in a power loss for the food processor and a thermal stress on the axial faces of housing part and tool as they move relative to one another.
A further apparatus for handling items to be processed, in particular for dicing fruit and vegetables, is known from the German utility model document DE 203 14 247 U1. It consists of a dicing grid disposed in a fixed position in the processor body and a blade rotating parallel thereto. The blade is configured in the manner of a bar and has two blade bodies, which are disposed with mirror symmetry to one another and are connected to the drive shaft of the apparatus. Together with the dicing grid the blade bodies form a wedge-type gap that narrows as the blade rotates and generates the axial force required to cut the items to be processed in the dicing grid. The corresponding counterforce is absorbed by a support facility in the form of two support rollers tapering conically toward the dicing grid, which are disposed in the region of the dicing grid over which the blade bars first pass at the level of the outer periphery of the blade. The outer periphery of each blade body, which is shaped to complement the conical support rollers, runs into the roller once per rotation during operation of the apparatus, said roller absorbing the axial reaction forces directed away from the dicing grid and acting on the blade and diverting them to the processor body. This prevents a non-permissible bending of the blade, which may result in an uneven processing result and contact between the blade and the feed shaft. The conical rollers can be set in their axial position relative to the machine body by way of a clamping facility.
This apparatus has no outer annular blade support, so caught items being processed cannot produce friction in an annular gap. However it has the disadvantage that the blade bodies run against the conical lateral surface of the support rollers during each rotation, which can increase the noise emission of the apparatus. There is also a risk that when the blade bodies run into the support rollers, elements of the items being processed can get between these and the outer periphery of the blade. If the support rollers are set incorrectly, the blades or support facility may be subject to greater wear or even damage.